Future Home of the Living God
Louise Erdrich, 2017
HarperCollins
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062694058
Summary
A startling portrait of a young woman fighting for her life and her unborn child against oppressive forces that manifest in the wake of a cataclysmic event.
The world as we know it is ending.
Evolution has reversed itself, affecting every living creature on earth. Science cannot stop the world from running backwards, as woman after woman gives birth to infants that appear to be primitive species of humans.
Thirty-two-year-old Cedar Hawk Songmaker, adopted daughter of a pair of big-hearted, open-minded Minneapolis liberals, is as disturbed and uncertain as the rest of America around her. But for Cedar, this change is profound and deeply personal. She is four months pregnant.
Though she wants to tell the adoptive parents who raised her from infancy, Cedar first feels compelled to find her birth mother, Mary Potts, an Ojibwe living on the reservation, to understand both her and her baby’s origins. As Cedar goes back to her own biological beginnings, society around her begins to disintegrate, fueled by a swelling panic about the end of humanity.
There are rumors of martial law, of Congress confining pregnant women. Of a registry, and rewards for those who turn these wanted women in. Flickering through the chaos are signs of increasing repression: a shaken Cedar witnesses a family wrenched apart when police violently drag a mother from her husband and child in a parking lot.
The streets of her neighborhood have been renamed with Bible verses. A stranger answers the phone when she calls her adoptive parents, who have vanished without a trace. It will take all Cedar has to avoid the prying eyes of potential informants and keep her baby safe.
A chilling dystopian novel both provocative and prescient, Future Home of the Living God is a startlingly original work from one of our most acclaimed writers: a moving meditation on female agency, self-determination, biology, and natural rights that speaks to the troubling changes of our time. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—June 7, 1954
• Where—Little Falls, Minnesota, USA
• Education—A.B., Dartmouth College; M.A., Johns Hopkins
• Awards—National Book Award; National Book Critics Circle Awards (2); Nelson Algren Prize
• Currently—lives in Minnesota
Karen Louise Erdrich is an author of some 20 novels, as well as poetry, short stories, and children's books. She has some Native American ancestry and is widely acclaimed as one of the most significant writers of the second wave of what critic Kenneth Lincoln has called the Native American Renaissance.
In 1984, Erdrich won the National Book Critics Circle Award for her debut novel, Love Medicine. In 2009, her novel The Plague of Doves was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, and three years later, in 2012, she won the National Book Award for Round House.
Erdrich is the owner of Birchbark Books, a small independent bookstore in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The eldest of seven children, Erdrich was born to Ralph and Rita Erdrich in Little Falls, Minnesota. Her father was German-American while her mother was French and Anishinaabe (Ojibwa). Her grandfather Patrick Gourneau served as a tribal chairman for the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians. Erdrich grew up in Wahpeton, North Dakota where her parents taught at the Bureau of Indian Affairs school.
She attended Dartmouth College in 1972-1976, earning an AB degree and meeting her future husband, the Modoc anthropologist and writer Michael Dorris. He was then director of the college’s Native American Studies program. Subsequently, Erdrich worked in a wide variety of jobs, including as a lifeguard, waitress, poetry teacher at prisons, and construction flag signaler. She also became an editor for The Circle, a newspaper produced by and for the urban Native population in Boston. Erdrich graduated with a Master of Arts degree in creative writing from Johns Hopkins University in 1979.
In the period 1978-1982, Erdrich published many poems and short stories. It was also during this period that she began collaborating with Dorris, initially working through the mail while Dorris was working in New Zealand. The relationship progressed, and the two were married in 1981. During this time, Erdrich assembled the material that would eventually be published as the poetry collection Jacklight.
In 1982, Erdrich's story "The World’s Greatest Fisherman" was awarded the $5,000 Nelson Algren Prize for short fiction. This convinced Erdrich and Dorris, who continued to work collaboratively, that they should embark on writing a novel.
Early Novels
In 1984, Erdrich published the novel Love Medicine. Made up of a disjointed but interconnected series of short narratives, each told from the perspective of a different character, and moving backwards and forward in time through every decade between the 1930s and the present day, the book told the stories of several families living near each other on a North Dakota Ojibwe reservation.
The innovative techniques of the book, which owed a great deal to the works of William Faulkner but have little precedent in Native-authored fiction, allowed Erdrich to build up a picture of a community in a way entirely suited to the reservation setting. She received immediate praise from author/critics such as N. Scott Momaday and Gerald Vizenor, and the book was awarded the 1984 National Book Critics Circle Award. It has never subsequently been out of print.
Erdrich followed Love Medicine with The Beet Queen, which continued her technique of using multiple narrators, but surprised many critics by expanding the fictional reservation universe of Love Medicine to include the nearby town of Argus, North Dakota. Native characters are very much kept in the background in this novel, while Erdrich concentrates on the German-American community. The action of the novel takes place mostly before World War II.
The Beet Queen was subject to a bitter attack from Native novelist Leslie Marmon Silko, who accused Erdrich of being more concerned with postmodern technique than with the political struggles of Native peoples.
Erdrich and Dorris’ collaborations continued through the 1980s and into the 1990s, always occupying the same fictional universe.
Tracks goes back to the early 20th century at the formation of the reservation and introduces the trickster figure of Nanapush, who owes a clear debt to Nanabozho. Erdrich’s novel most rooted in Anishinaabe culture (at least until Four Souls), it shows early clashes between traditional ways and the Roman Catholic Church.
The Bingo Palace updates but does not resolve various conflicts from Love Medicine: set in the 1980s, it shows the effects both good and bad of a casino and a factory being set up among the reservation community. Finally, Tales of Burning Love finishes the story of Sister Leopolda, a recurring character from all the former books, and introduces a new set of white people to the reservation universe.
Erdrich and Dorris wrote The Crown of Columbus, the only novel to which both writers put their names, and A Yellow Raft in Blue Water, credited to Dorris. Both of these were set away from the Argus reservation.
Domestic Life
The couple had six children, three of them adopted. Dorris had adopted the children when he was single. After their marriage, Erdrich also adopted them, and the couple had three daughters together. Some of the children had difficulties.
In 1989 Dorris published The Broken Cord, a book about fetal alcohol syndrome, from which their adopted son Reynold Abel suffered. Dorris had found it was a widespread and until then relatively undiagnosed problem among Native American children because of mothers' alcohol issues. In 1991, Reynold Abel was hit by a car and killed at age 23.
In 1995 their son Jeffrey Sava accused them both of child abuse. Dorris and Erdrich unsuccessfully pursued an extortion case against him. Shortly afterward, Dorris and Erdrich separated and began divorce proceedings. Erdrich claimed that Dorris had been depressed since the second year of their marriage.
On April 11, 1997, Michael Dorris committed suicide in Concord, New Hampshire.
Later Writings
Erdrich’s first novel after divorce, The Antelope Wife, was the first to be set outside the continuity of the previous books. She has subsequently returned to the reservation and nearby towns, and has produced five novels since 1998 dealing with events in that fictional area. Among these are The Master Butchers Singing Club, a macabre mystery which again draws on Erdrich's Native American and German-American heritage, and The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse. Both have geographic and character connections with The Beet Queen.
Together with several of her previous works, these have drawn comparisons with William Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha novels. The successive novels have created multiple narratives in the same fictional area and combined the tapestry of local history with current themes and modern consciousness.
In The Plague of Doves, Erdrich has continued the multi-ethnic dimension of her writing, weaving together the layered relationships among residents of farms, towns and reservations; their shared histories, secrets, relationships and antipathies; and the complexities for later generations of re-imagining their ancestors' overlapping pasts. The novel was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2009.
Erdrich's 2010 book, Shadow Tag, was a departure for her, as she focuses on a failed marriage.
Erdrich is an enrolled member of the Anishinaabe nation (also known as Ojibwa and Chippewa). Erdrich also has German, French and American ancestry. One sister, Heidi, publishes under the name Heid E. Erdrich; she is a poet who also resides in Minnesota. Another sister, Lise Erdrich, has written children's books and collections of fiction and essays. For the past few years, the three Erdrich sisters have hosted annual writers workshops on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation in North Dakota.
The award-winning photographer Ronald W. Erdrich is one of their cousins. He lives and works in Abilene, Texas. He was named "Star Photojournalist of the Year" in 2004 by the Texas Associated Press Managing Editors association. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
(Featured review.) [S]tartling…. Erdrich’s characters are brave and conscientious, but… they act mostly as vehicles for Erdrich’s ideas. Those ideas, however…are strikingly relevant.… A cautionary tale for this very moment in time.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Masterful…a breakout work of speculative fiction…Erdrich enters the realm of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale…A tornadic, suspenseful, profoundly provoking novel of life’s vulnerability and insistence…with a bold apocalyptic theme, searing social critique, and high-adrenaline action.
Booklist
(Starred review.) Dreamlike, suspenseful…this novel is bracing, humane, dedicated to witnessing the plight of women in a cruel universe, and full of profound spiritual questions and observations. Like some of Erdrich’s earlier work, it shifts adroitly in time and has a thoughtful, almost mournful insight into life on a Native reservation.… There is much to rue in this novel about our world but also hope for salvation.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for Future Home of the Living God … then take off on your own:
1. Talk about Cedar Hawk Songmaker. How would you describe her? What traits does she possess that enable her to navigate this new world? What about her adoptive parents, Sera and Glen Songmaker: has Louise Erdrich drawn them as parodies or as authentic liberals?
2. What is it about the letter from Mary Potts that irritates Cedar? Why does she decide to make the trip up to the reservation to meet Mary? What are her expectations for the three Mary Pottses—and do the women fulfill those expectations? Consider the moment when Sweetie speaks before the Indian Council and uses the word "caveat": where you surprised at her choice of the word? Or were you surprised at Cedar's surprise that she used the word? In other words, was Cedar condescending in her attitude toward Sweetie? What about Eddy—what is he like? Were you surprised by his erudition?
3. Why did Cedar convert to Catholicism? How would you describe her spiritual/religious beliefs? Why is she so fascinated by the article, "The Madonna's Conception Through the Ear," and in what way is her curiosity connected to the coming birth of her own child? What is your own thinking about the "word" or "Word" whispered to Mary—is it an actual word … or an idea?
4. Follow-up to Question 3: Why does Cedar refer to the baby's father as an "angel" and to his brown wings? What is the symbolic significance of the couple's love-making in the various costumes in the basement of their church.
5. Cedar writes, "The first thing that happens at the end of the world is that we don't know what is happening." What does she mean? Are there parallels (or warnings?) in Erdrich's book that pertain to our own world, the one we're living in? In what way are our current societal anxieties given voice in this novel?
6. Why is the government rounding up pregnant women? How are women seen as the possible salvation of the human species?
7. Why is Sera, as she admits to Cedar, not happy about Cedar's pregnancy? Is it right that she's unhappy? Or do you think she is wrong, perhaps selfishly so? How would you feel in her situation?
8. Eddy tells Cedar, "Indians have been adapting since before 1492 so I guess we'll all keep adapting." Then he adds, [The world's] always going to pieces." Is he right—that societies have always regrouped, reformed, and rebuilt after disasters? Or this this current disaster, the one in the novel, different?
9. Earlier, Cedar writes that "Our bodies have always remembered who we were. And now they have decided to return. We’re climbing back down the swimming-pool ladder into the primordial soup." Is there a cause given for the devolution of the species? Is it the activation of redundant genes that have lain dormant for millions of years (p. 106)? If so, why is it happening all at once—throughout the animal and plant kingdoms? Or is it that God has simply tired of human kind, as Phil suggests?
10. As society begins to collapse in the novel, does it unravel the way you would expect it to? Consider the New Constitution or the postal service's hiring of private contractors to protect the mail deliverers on their rounds. Does the unraveling seem unrealistic, maybe over-the-top? Or is Erdrich's dystopian vision realistic, perhaps even feasible—in other words, can you see it actually happening?
11. SPOILER ALERT: What do you think of Phil—both at the beginning of the novel, when we first meet him, and by the end? Do you blame him for giving up names? Cedar is angry with him … or is she? Does his turn-coat action at the end seem out of character for him?
12. SPOILER ALERT: Were Sera and Glen right to have withheld from Cedar the truth about her birth father? Did your attitude toward Glen change after learning of his affair with Sweetie?
13. What is the meaning of the book's title? On August 9, as Cedar is driving up to meet Mary Potts, she passes a billboard in a bare, weedy field that reads "Future Home of the Living God." Why might Erdrich have taken it as the title for her novel?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
The Story of Arthur Truluv
Elizabeth Berg, 2017
Random House
240 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781400069903
Summary
An emotionally powerful novel about three people who each lose the one they love most, only to find second chances where they least expect them—from New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Berg
For the past six months, Arthur Moses’s days have looked the same: He tends to his rose garden and to Gordon, his cat, then rides the bus to the cemetery to visit his beloved late wife for lunch.
Sometimes in the evening he’ll take a walk and stop to chat with his nosy neighbor, Lucille. It’s a quiet routine not entirely without its joys. The last thing Arthur would imagine is for one unlikely encounter to utterly transform his life.
Eighteen-year-old Maddy Harris is an introspective girl who often comes to the cemetery to escape the other kids at school and a life of loss. She’s seen Arthur sitting there alone, and one afternoon she joins him—a gesture that begins a surprising friendship between two lonely souls.
Moved by Arthur’s kindness and devotion, Maddy gives him the nickname "Truluv." As Arthur’s neighbor Lucille moves into their orbit, the unlikely trio bands together, helping one another, through heartache and hardships, to rediscover their own potential to start anew.
Wonderfully written and full of profound observations about life, The Story of Arthur Truluv is a beautiful and moving novel of compassion in the face of loss, of the small acts that turn friends into family, and of the possibilities to achieve happiness at any age. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—December 2, 1948
• Where—St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
• Education—A.A.S, St. Mary’s College
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in Chicago, Illinois
Before she became a writer, Elizabeth Berg spent 10 years as a nurse. It's a field, as she says on her website, that helped her to become a writer:
Taking care of patients taught me a lot about human nature, about hope and fear and love and loss and regret and triumph and especially about relationships—all things that I tend to focus on in my work.
Her sensitivity to humanity is what Berg's writing is noted for. As Publishers Weekly wrote in reviewing The Dream Lover, her 2015 portrayal of George Sand, "Berg offers vivid, sensual detail and a sensitive portrayal of the yearning and vulnerability" behind her main character.
Background
Berg was born in St. Paul Minneapolis. When her father re-enlisted in the Army, she and her family were moved from base to base—in one single year, she went to three different schools. Her peripatetic childhood makes it hard for Berg to answer the usually simple question, "where did you grow up?"
Berg recalls that she loved to write at a young age. She was only nine when she submitted her first poem to American Girl magazine; sadly, it was rejected. It was another 25 years before she submitted anything again—to Parents Magazine—and that time she won.
In addition to nursing, Berg worked as a waitress, another field she claims is "good training for a writer." She also sang in a rock band.
Writing
Berg ended up writing for magazines for 10 years before she finally turned to novels. Since her 1993 debut with Durable Goods, her books have sold in large numbers and been translated into 27 languages. She writes nearly a book a year, a number of which have received awards and honors.
Recognition
Two of Berg's books, Durable Goods and Joy School, were listed as "Best Books of the Year" by the American Library Association. Open House became an Oprah Book Club Selection.
She won the New England Booksellers Award for her body of work, and Boston Public Library made her a "literary light." She has also been honored by the Chicago Public Library. An article on a cooking school in Italy, for National Geographic Traveler magazine, won an award from the North American Travel Journalists Association.
Personal
Now divorced, Berg was married for over twenty years and has two daughters and three grandchildren. She lives with her dogs and a cat in Chicago. (Author bio adapted from the author's website.)
Book Reviews
Berg’s novel is as comforting as Lucille’s fresh-baked cookies, with plenty of charm and memorable characters. Readers will be taken by this story about how friendship can defy any generation gap and how it’s never too late to find a new purpose in life.
Publishers Weekly
[A] sweet, sentimental tale of an elderly man and a teenager coming into each other's lives at just the right moment.… [T]his life-affirming story is a … little break from the darker novels that have been so popular lately. —Beth Gibbs, Davidson, NC
Library Journal
Fans of Meg Wolitzer, Emma Straub, or Berg’s previous novels will appreciate the richly complex characters and clear prose. Redemptive without being maudlin, this story of two misfits lucky to have found one another will tug at readers' heartstrings.
Booklist
[The life-affirming messages are far from subtle, and the fine line between sensitivity and sentimentality is often breached. Aims for profound but settles for pleasant.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for The Story of Arthur Truluv … then take off on your own:
1. How would you describe Arthur Moses? Although many of us (are you one?) find graveyards somewhat disconcerting, even eerie, Arthur finds comfort in visiting Nora's grave. What is it about the cemetary that offers him solace?
2. What drives Maddy to the graveyard? How would you define Maddy and her father's relationship? What is it about Arthur that attracts Maddy, eventually inspiring her to coin the name Truluv?
3. Care to comment on Maddy's observation about love: "But the longer I live, the more I come to see that love is not so easy for everyone. It can get awfully complicated." Does it sadden you to realize that such a dark view of life and love comes from a teenager? Or is it preferable that young people attain wisdom or caution early on?
4. What does Lucille bring to the mix of personalities? How do you see her role?
5. "What is it that makes a family?" This question lies at the heart of the novel. Care to weigh in on it?
6. Follow-up to Question 5: Consider the quotation in full (from which the question above is taken):
What is it that makes a family? Certainly no document does, no legal pronouncement or accident of birth. No, real families come from choices we make about who we want to be bound to, and the ties to such families live in our hearts.
Consider the possible implications of that passage: perhaps blood families or legal families are not worth fighting for; it may be easier to walk away. Is the passage suggesting that, when family life falls apart, we should choose to opt out rather than attempt to work through painful relationships or deal with troubled family members? There is no right or wrong answer here: it's simply a question to spark discussion.
7. Do you find the ending satisfying? (Did you predict it?) Would you have preferred another? Why do you think Elizabeth Berg chose the conclusion she did?
8. Some have found this book schmaltzy and overly sentimental. Others find it deeply heartfelt and genuine. Where do you stand?
8. Can you see similarities between this novel and A Man Called Ove or The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
The Resurrection of Joan Ashby
Cherise Wolas, 2017
Flatiron Books
544 pp.
ISBN-13: 978125008143#
Summary
I viewed the consumptive nature of love as a threat to serious women. But the wonderful man I just married believes as I do—work is paramount, absolutely no children—and now love seems to me quite marvelous.
These words are spoken to a rapturous audience by Joan Ashby, a brilliant and intense literary sensation acclaimed for her explosively dark and singular stories.
When Joan finds herself unexpectedly pregnant, she is stunned by Martin’s delight, his instant betrayal of their pact. She makes a fateful, selfless decision then, to embrace her unintentional family.
Challenged by raising two precocious sons, it is decades before she finally completes her masterpiece novel. Poised to reclaim the spotlight, to resume the intended life she gave up for love, a betrayal of Shakespearean proportion forces her to question every choice she has made.
Epic, propulsive, incredibly ambitious, and dazzlingly written, The Resurrection of Joan Ashby is a story about sacrifice and motherhood, the burdens of expectation and genius. Cherise Wolas’s gorgeous debut introduces an indelible heroine candid about her struggles and unapologetic in her ambition. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Raised—Los Angeles, California, USA
• Education—B.F.A., New York University; J.D., Loyola University
• Currently—lives in New York, New York
Cherise Wolas is a writer, lawyer, and film producer. She received a BFA from New York University’s Tisch was School of the Arts, and a JD from Loyola Law School. The Resurrection of Joan Ashby, her debut novel, was published in 2017, and The Family Tabor in 2018.
A native of Los Angeles, she lives in New York City with her husband. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Love and betrayal and expectation, all encapsulated in the story of one woman, Joan Ashby, and the surprises and disappointments of her life. Wolas' debut turns a critical and perceptive eye onto the complications and expectations of marriage. It’s also gorgeously written. Get into it.
Southern Living
You will not come away unchanged, and you will continue to think about Joan Ashby’s path long after you put this brick down.… [A] masterful (mistress-ful? We need a better modifier …) debut novel that dares to consider whether becoming a mother is worth it, or not.
LitHub
[L]ong-winded.… The novel, in addition to overextending itself…is frustrating, shallowly addressing its central theme of artistic pursuit versus family, and eventually turns into more of an inspirational primer on Buddhism than character study.
Publishers Weekly
[A]stonishing debut…innovative…brilliant.
Shelf Awareness
(Starred review.) [L]ayer upon layer of precisely meshed poetic and cinematic scenes to realize a life of such quiet majesty…. Readers not only will mourn coming to the end, they will feel compelled to start over to watch the miracle of this novel unfold again. Breathtaking.
Library Journal
It’s almost impossible to believe that The Resurrection of Joan Ashby…is the first novel by Cherise Wolas, a lawyer and film producer. Gorgeously written and completely captivating, the book spans decades and continents, deftly capturing the tug so many women feel between motherhood and self-identity.
BookPage
(Starred review.) This breathtaking…novel will do for motherhood what Gone Girl (2012) did for marriage. "A story requires two things: a great story to tell and the bravery to tell it," Joan observes. Wolas’ debut expertly checks off both boxes.
Booklist
(Starred review.) Like John Irving’s The World According to Garp, this is a look at the life of a writer that will entertain many nonwriters. Like Lauren Groff’s Fates and Furies, it’s a sharp-eyed portrait of the artist as spouse…. [O]ne wonders how Wolas is possibly going to pay off the idea that her heroine is such a genius. Verdict: few could do better.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Discuss the novel’s title. How is Joan "resurrected" over the course of the novel?
2. Do you agree that "treacheries experienced in childhood are among the most difficult to overcome, or to forgive"? How is Joan shaped by her childhood, and how are her husband and children? Discuss the ways in which treachery affects their family dynamic. What do you believe is the role of nature vs. nurture in terms of ambition success?
3. Daniel reflects:
It is a long-borne burden, knowing what you lack, and I knew what I lacked.… Where, I thought, was the lost and found for discarded genius, from which I could select what I desperately wanted and needed ?" How does this novel define "genius"?
What is the relationship between genius and work in these characters’ lives?
4. Joan says in an interview:
Love was more than simply inconvenient; its consumptive nature always a threat to serious women. I had seen too often what happened to serious women in love, their sudden, unnatural lightheartedness, their new wardrobe of happiness their prior selves would never have worn, the loss of their forward momentum. I wanted no such conversion, no vulnerability to needless distraction.
Do you agree? How do Joan’s views on love shift over the course of the novel?
5. What role do the excerpts of Joan’s stories and novels play in The Resurrection of Joan Ashby? Did you read them as a lens into her character, ambitions, and perspective on motherhood? Do you have a favorite excerpt?
6. Joan asks:
Is motherhood inescapably entwined in female life, a story every woman ends up telling, whether or not she sought or desired that bond; her nourishment, her caretaking, her love, needed by someone standing before her, hands held out, heart demanding succor, commanding her not to look away, but to dig deep, give of herself unstintingly, offer up everything she can?
What would you answer? Discuss the various depictions of motherhood in the novel, including in Joan’s own writing.
7. Joan reflects at one point: "Writers have infinite choices and mothers nearly no choice at all." How do her roles as writer and mother shape her over the course of the novel? Does she ultimately reconcile those two sides of herself?
8. Joan refers to her characters as "her people." Discuss Joan’s different creations, as an author and as a mother. How much control does she have over her characters? Over her children?
9. How do you feel about Joan’s letter to Daniel? Do you think he deserves a second chance? What does the novel suggest about unconditional love within families? Do you think we hold mothers to different standards than fathers when it comes to unconditional love?
10. Vita Brodkey says to Joan: "I will not tell you to be safe, safety is for fools, but remember everything." What is the importance of memory and history in this novel? Discuss Vita’s importance in Joan’s life.
11. Joan finds herself living an"unintended life." What is the relationship between intention and accident in the novel? How much agency do we have in our own stories? How does meditation shape Joan’s quest to live an intended life?
12. Names play a significant role throughout this novel. Discuss Joan’s decision to go by "Ashby" when she is in India. How does she change over the course of the novel, and what role do names play in that transformation?
13. What is the role of place in the narrative? How do Joan’s various homes influence her happiness and creativity? Where does she most belong, and how does she find belonging? How is India, in particular, portrayed, and how does the country itself shape Joan’s transformation?
14. Joan, Martin, Daniel, and Eric all keep secrets from one another. How do those secrets protect or harm them? Are secrets inevitable within families? Do artistic endeavor and genius have their own rules when it comes to openness?
15. When Joan has been in Dharamshala for several months, she finally takes a pilgrimage. Willem meets her on the way, and tells her a pilgrimage doesn’t have to be taken alone. Discuss Joan and Willem’s relationship, and how it differs from Joan’s relationship with Martin.
16. Kartar tells Daniel his name means "Lord of Creation." What does Kartar’s presence in both Daniel’s and Joan’s life mean? How would you characterize his role? Has he shaped his life around the meaning of his name and the stories his own mother told him?
17. If you could leave your life to pursue your dream, where would you go, what would you do?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
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The Reason You're Alive
Matthew Quick, 2017
HarperCollins
240 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062424303
Summary
A timely novel featuring his most fascinating character yet, a Vietnam vet embarking on a quixotic crusade to track down his nemesis from the war.
After sixty-eight-year-old David Granger crashes his BMW, medical tests reveal a brain tumor that he readily attributes to his wartime Agent Orange exposure. He wakes up from surgery repeating a name no one in his civilian life has ever heard—that of a Native American soldier whom he was once ordered to discipline.
David decides to return something precious he long ago stole from the man he now calls Clayton Fire Bear. It may be the only way to find closure in a world increasingly at odds with the one he served to protect. It may also help him to finally recover from his wife’s untimely demise.
As David confronts his past to salvage his present, a poignant portrait emerges: that of an opinionated and good-hearted American patriot fighting like hell to stay true to his red, white, and blue heart, even as the country he loves rapidly changes in ways he doesn’t always like or understand.
Hanging in the balance are Granger’s distant art-dealing son, Hank; his adoring seven-year-old granddaughter, Ella; and his best friend, Sue, a Vietnamese American who respects David’s fearless sincerity.
Through the controversial, wrenching, and wildly honest David Granger, Matthew Quick offers a no-nonsense but ultimately hopeful view of America’s polarized psyche. By turns irascible and hilarious, insightful and inconvenient, David is a complex, wounded, honorable, and loving man.
The Reason You’re Alive examines how the secrets and debts we carry from our past define us; it also challenges us to look beyond our own prejudices and search for the good in us all. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—October 23, 1972
• Raised—Oaklyn, New Jersey, USA
• Education—B.A., LaSalle University; M.F.A, Goddard College
• Currently—lives in Holden, Massachusetts
Matthew Quick is an American author of young adult and fiction novels. His debut novel, The Silver Linings Playbook, was adapted into a movie, starring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, with Robert De Niro, Jackie Weaver, and Chris Tucker.
His other novels include Sorta Like a Rockstar (2010), Boy21 (2012), Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock (2013), The Good Luck for Right Now (2014), and The Reason You're Alive. Quick was finalist for a 2009 PEN/Hemingway Award, and his work has been translated into several languages.
Quick grew up in Oaklyn, New Jersey. He has a degree in English literature from La Salle University and an MFA from Goddard College. He left his job as a tenured English teacher in Haddonfield, New Jersey, to write his first novel while living in Collingswood, New Jersey. He now lives in Holden, Massachusetts with his wife, novelist Alicia Bessette. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 02/17/2014.)
Book Reviews
Inspiring.… Matthew Quick has a way with wounded characters.
Boston Globe
The author of The Silver Linings Playbook delivers another engaging and screen-ready dramedy about an irascible misfit on a mission for closure.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The role of David Granger may someday be played by an Oscar-hungry actor. But that shouldn’t distract from the vivid, high-definition protagonist that already glows from the page.... That candor and honesty gives this first-person narrative its potency. It also supplies the humor.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
It’s impossible not to love each of these deeply flawed characters.… As funny as it is touching, Quick’s latest effort is on par with Silver Linings.
USA Today
A gratifying romp.… Fans of The Silver Linings Playbook know Quick’s penchant for emotionally troubled, big-hearted characters, and Good Luck will satisfy those readers and new ones alike.
People
Meet David Granger, the bigoted 68-year-old Vietnam veteran and narrator of Quick’s dark, funny, and surprisingly tender new novel.… Granger’s life is rife with instances that either prove or belie his reputation as a xenophobic, racist homophobe.
Publishers Weekly
Quick delivers an exceptional novel; its themes of war and memory as well as its unforgettable characters, especially the ornery David, fast pace, and insightful dialog will connect with readers of Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried. —Russell Michalak, Goldey-Beacom Coll. Lib., Wilmington, DE
Library Journal
A scorching family drama.…narrated with ire and eloquence by David Granger... It’s as if Holden Caulfield grew up to be a reflective, even soulful, Archie Bunker.… A touching, old-fashioned drama about the ties that sometimes choke, but always bind.
BookPage
A veteran tries to come to terms with the traumatic experiences he had a generation earlier in Vietnam.… A valuable addition to fiction about the tangled aftereffects of Vietnam on soldiers in the field.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. How would you categorize this novel? Is it a father/son drama, a tale about war’s aftermath, a tragic love story, a political commentary, or something different altogether?
2. How does David’s voice affect the story? How would the story be different if it were told in third person? Or from Henri’s point of view? From Ella’s? Sue’s? Teddy’s? Johnny’s? Timmy’s? Femke’s? Frank’s?
3. How are David and Henri different? How are they similar?
4. If you met David’s son would you call him Henri or Hank? Explain your answer.
5. David was highly influenced by his father’s WWII experience and adopted a worldview that matched his old man’s. Henri was highly influenced by David’s Vietnam War experience, yet David and Henri ended up on opposite ends of the political spectrum. Why?
6. Are words more important than actions, or are actions more important than words?
7. Discuss the women in the story. Why does David love and admire his mother, Jessica, Ella, and Sue? Why does David dislike Femke, Femke’s mother, and Frank’s wife? Why does he mistrust the woman who is recording his confession?
8. Is David’s relationship with his granddaughter, Ella, healthy?
9. Do you think Femke is as insufferable as David makes her out to be? Do you believe that Femke and David will work out their differences in the end? Is that possible?
10. His politically correct minded son labels David a bigot, yet—while he does harbor some antiquated ideas about race and sexuality—David has a diverse group of friends and business associates. What makes Henri think his father is a bigot? Discuss David’s criteria when it comes to separating those he respects from “the morons.”
11. How does David help his wife, Jessica? Reading between the lines, how might David have made things difficult for Jessica?
12. Discuss Jessica’s painting, The Reason You’re Alive. What role does art play in this story?
13. Why does Clayton Fire Bear keep Jessica’s painting? Why does he hang a portrait of his abuser in his home?
14. Why does David assign his Vietnam War nemesis a nom de guerre?
15. Does David’s mistrust of the government (and most authority figures) ever seem exaggerated or comical? Is he paranoid, or is his doubt justified?
16. If David Granger—in full military-issued camouflage—approached you in public and tried to strike up a conversation about politics, how would you react?
17. Is David Granger an honorable human being?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
What We Lose
Zinzi Clemmons, 2017
Penguin Publishing
224 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780735221710
Summary
A stunning novel about a young African-American woman coming of age—a deeply felt meditation on race, sex, family, and country
Raised in Pennsylvania, Thandi views the world of her mother’s childhood in Johannesburg as both impossibly distant and ever present.
She is an outsider wherever she goes, caught between being black and white, American and not. She tries to connect these dislocated pieces of her life, and as her mother succumbs to cancer, Thandi searches for an anchor—someone, or something, to love.
In arresting and unsettling prose, we watch Thandi’s life unfold, from losing her mother and learning to live without the person who has most profoundly shaped her existence, to her own encounters with romance and unexpected motherhood.
Through exquisite and emotional vignettes, Clemmons creates a stunning portrayal of what it means to choose to live, after loss. An elegiac distillation, at once intellectual and visceral, of a young woman’s understanding of absence and identity that spans continents and decades, What We Lose heralds the arrival of a virtuosic new voice in fiction. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1984-85
• Raised—Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, USA
• Education—B.A., Brown University; M.F.A., Columbia University
• Currently—lives in Los Angeles, California
Zinzi Clemmons is an American writer, teacher, and editor, whose debut novel What We Lose was published to wide acclaim in 2017. She was raised in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, by a mixed race South African mother and African-American father—and, like her novel's heroine, knows what it feels like to be an outsider. Swarthmore is a mostly white college town (yes, Swarthmore College) outside of Philadelphia: "we were the only black family, and foreign," Clemmons has said. Summers spent in Johannesburg, South Africa, only added to a sense of displacement. And, importantly, like her heroine, she too lost a mother.
Clemmons received her Bachelor's degree at Brown and Master's in Fiction from Columbia. Her writing has appeared in Zoetrope: All-Story, Transition, Paris Review Daily, and elsewhere. She is also a co-founder and former Publisher of Apogee Journal and a Contributing Editor to LitHub.com.
Married to poet and translator Andre Naffis-Sahely, Clemmons now lives in Los Angeles where she teaches literature and creative writing at The Colburn Conservatory and Occidental College. (Adapted from various online sources.)
Book Reviews
A stunning debut novel about a young African American woman and the kaleidoscope of identity.
Los Angeles Daily News
Potent.… A loosely autobiographical exorcism of grief. Boldly innovative and frankly sexual, the collage-like novel mixes hand-drawn charts, archival photographs, rap lyrics, sharp disquisitions on the Mandelas and Oscar Pistorius, and singular meditations on racism’s brutal intimacies..… A novel as visceral as it is cerebral, never letting us forget, over the course of its improbably expansive 200 pages, the feeling of untameable grief in the body.… One can’t help but think of Clemmons as in the running to be the next-generation Claudia Rankine.
Megan O’Grady - Vogue
Contrasting what it means to be black in America with being black in Johannesburg, where her mother’s relatives still live, Clemmons presents a brutally honest yet nuanced view of contemporary identity.… Raw and ravishing, this novel pulses with vulnerability and shimmering anger.
Nicole Dennis-Benn - Oprah Magazine
This affecting novel combines autobiographical vignettes with photos and pertinent charts—one tracks longevity by race—as the narrator reckons with her loss.
People
Remember this name: Zinzi Clemmons. Long may she thrill us with exquisite works like What We Lose, her debut. Young Thandi, our heroine, grows up in Pennsylvania feeling like a fish on a bicycle. Why? As a biracial woman whose mother hails from Johannesburg, South Africa, she struggles to define home. In Clemmons’s hands the book is a remarkable journey.
Patrick Henry Bass - Essence
This intimate novel from a talented new writer follows Thandi, a Philadelphia girl with a South African mom, who has a complicated relationship with her place in the world. Through prose, text messages, photos, and book excerpts, the cornucopia of storytelling activates all the feels.
Steph Opitz - Marie Claire
Clemmons’ debut novel is a stunning work about growing up, losing your parents, and being an outsider. Perfect for fans of tangled immigrant stories like Americanah.
Glamour.com
Stunning.… What We Lose doesn’t attempt to answer any of the questions it raises. Instead, it dwells in them—in ways that are sad, sometimes funny—and gives readers a sense of what it’s like to be constantly haunted in that headspace.
Kevin Nguyen - GQ.com
Zinzi Clemmons’ powerful debut novel tells the story of Thandi, a woman raised in Philadelphia who’s struggling to come to terms with the death of her mother, who left behind a complicated legacy of her own.
Cosmopolitan.com
This hauntingly honest novel celebrates the coming-of-age tale of a young African-American woman who chooses to live vibrantly in the face of loss, adversity, and devastation. Promised to be one of the most influential new voices in fiction, Zinzi Clemmons is a must for any serious beach reader. This is 2017’s most raw literary display of female emotions.
Redbook
Exacting reflections on race, mourning, and family are at the center of this novel about a college student whose mother dies of cancer.… Though too restrained, there are some inspired moments, and Clemmons admirably balances the story’s myriad complicated themes.
Publishers Weekly
Raised by a South African mother and an American father, Thandi walks the color line. Then she learns that her mother has cancer. Debuter Clemmons, who has a second novel signed, writes on the Black Lives Matter movement for Literary Hub.
Library Journal
The much-anticipated debut from Clemmons unfolds through poignant vignettes and centers on the daughter of an immigrant. Raised in Philadelphia, Thandi is the daughter of a South African mother and an American father. Her identity is split, and when her mother dies, Thandi begins a moving, multidimensional exploration of grief and loss.
BookPage
(Starred review.) Spectacular.… Clemmons performs an exceptional sleight of hand that is both affecting and illuminating.
Booklist
(Starred review.) A big, brainy drama told by a fearless, funny young woman.… Prepare for Thandi’s voice to follow you from room to room long after you put this book away. A compelling exploration of race, migration, and womanhood in contemporary America.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to start a discussion for What We Lose ... then take off on your own:
1. Thandi and her mother's relationship is at the center of this novel. How would you describe it? What issues are at the heart of their disagreements? Consider immigration, motherhood, gender.
2. How would you describe Thandi? What contributes to her sense of feeling like an outsider? Have you ever experienced a sense of not belonging?
3. Follow-up to Question 2: Thandi has been told "But you're not, like, a real black person." How does this add to her sense of alienation?
4. In what ways does her mother's death affect Thandi. Talk about how her grief manifests itself in decisions that may not be the best for her future.
5. Thandi confesses, "My theory is that loneliness creates the feeling of haunting." What does she mean?
6. Zinzi Clemmons' novel is a cornucopia of storytelling. Her narrative incorporates hand-drawn charts, photographs, rap lyrics, philosophical meditations on things as varied as the Mandelas and racism. How do these devices add to or detract from your experience of reading the novel?
7. How is being black in American different from being black in Johannesburg.
8. How does Thandi come to see her place in the world? How does she finally come to grips with her identity? Does she ever find home…or feel at home?
9. This novel, mostly about grief, is in parts funny. Where do you find humor?
10. Talk about the significance of the book's title.
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)